Campaign The campaign was fought without much enthusiasm, and practically without an issue. Neither of the two great parties made an effort to rally the people to the defense of any important principle. Whig campaigners, who included future presidents
Abraham Lincoln and
Rutherford B. Hayes, talked up Taylor's "antiparty" opposition to the
Jacksonian commitment to the
spoils system and yellow-dog partisanship. In the South, they stressed that he was a Louisiana slaveholder, while in the North they highlighted his Whiggish willingness to defer to Congress on major issues (which he subsequently did not do). Democrats repeated, as they had for many years, their opposition to a national bank, high tariffs, and federal subsidies for local improvements. The Free Soilers branded both major parties lackeys of the
Slave Power, arguing that the rich planters controlled the agenda of both parties, leaving the ordinary white man out of the picture. They had to work around Van Buren's well-known reputation for compromising with slavery. The Whigs had the advantage of highlighting Taylor's military glories. With Taylor remaining vague on the issues, the campaign was dominated by personalities and personal attacks, with the Democrats calling Taylor vulgar, uneducated, cruel and greedy, and the Whigs attacking Cass for graft and dishonesty. The division of the Democrats over slavery allowed Taylor to dominate the Northeast. The Free Soilers were on the ballots in only 17 of the 29 states with the popular vote, making it mathematically possible for Van Buren to win the presidency, but he had no real chance. Still, the party campaigned vigorously, particularly in the traditional Democratic strongholds in the northeast. While some Free Soilers were hopeful of taking enough states to throw the election into the House of Representatives, Van Buren himself knew this was a long shot and that the best that his party could do was lay the groundwork for a hopefully improved showing in 1852.
1848 campaign artwork Records This was the first time in the
Second Party System in which the victorious party failed to gain at least a plurality of the counties as well as of the popular vote. This was the last election in which Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island voted for the Whigs. It was also the last time that Georgia voted against the Democrats until 1964, the last time Delaware and Louisiana did so until 1872, and the last time Florida and North Carolina did so until 1868. Discounting
Republican Abraham Lincoln's
1864 re-election on the
National Union ticket, Taylor is the most recent individual who was not a member of either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party to win a presidential election. The contest was the first presidential election that took place on the same day in every state, and it was the first time that Election Day was statutorily a Tuesday. It is also the first election in which the two candidates that received electoral votes carried the same number of states and the only time that it happened between Democrat and Whig candidates. This would only happen again twice, in
1880 and
2020.
Results 28.6% of the voting age population and 72.8% of eligible voters participated in the election. With Taylor as their candidate, the Whigs won their second and last victory in a presidential election. Taylor won the electoral college by capturing 163 of the 290 electoral votes. Taylor out-polled Cass in the popular vote by 138,000 votes, winning 47% of the popular vote, and was elected president. A shift of less than 6000 votes to Cass in Georgia and Maryland would have left the electoral college in a 145–145 tie, while a shift of less than 27,000 votes to Van Buren in Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts would have left both Taylor and Cass short of the 146 electoral votes required to win, forcing a contingent election in the House of Representatives. A study of the county returns reveals that Free Soil strength drawn at the expense of the major parties differed by region. In the
East North Central States, it appears at least the majority of the Free Soil strength was drawn from the Whig Party. Conversely, in the
Middle Atlantic region, Free Soil bases of strength lay in the areas which had hitherto been Democratic, particularly in New York and
northern Pennsylvania. The Free Soil Democrats nomination of Van Buren made the victory of Taylor nearly certain in New York. On election day, enough Democratic votes were drawn away by Van Buren to give the Whig ticket all but two Democratic counties, thus enabling it to carry hitherto impregnable parts of
upper New York state. The Democrats, confronted with an irreparable schism in New York, lost the election. In
New England, the Democratic vote declined by 33,000 from its 1844 level, while the Whig vote likewise declined by 15,000 votes. The third-party vote tripled, and the total vote remained nearly stationary: a partial indication, perhaps, of the derivation of the Free Soil strength in this section. For the first time since the existence of the Whig Party, the Whigs failed to gain an absolute majority of the vote in Massachusetts and Vermont. In addition, the Democrats failed to retain their usual majority in Maine; thus only New Hampshire (Democratic) and Rhode Island (Whig) of the states in this section gave their respective victorious parties clear-cut majorities. Of the 1,464 counties/independent cities making returns, Cass placed first in 753 (51.43%), Taylor in 676 (46.17%), and Van Buren in 31 (2.12%). Four counties (0.27%) in the West split evenly between Taylor and Cass. The election has sometimes been described as "a contest without an issue," as both major candidates sought to steer clear of divisive subjects. The historian George Pierce Garrison famously quipped that "practically the only thing it decided was that a Whig general should be made President because he had done effective work in carrying on a Democratic war."
Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote): (a)
The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote. Geography of results Cartographic gallery 1848 US Presidential Election Results.svg|Map of presidential election results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote WhigPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Whig presidential election results by county DemocraticPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Democratic presidential election results by county FreeSoilPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Free Soil presidential election results by county LibertyPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Liberty presidential election results by county OtherPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Map of "Other" presidential election results by county CartogramPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|
Cartogram of presidential election results by county CartogramWhigPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Whig presidential election results by county CartogramDemocraticPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Democratic presidential election results by county CartogramFreeSoilPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Free Soil presidential election results by county CartogramLibertyPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Liberty presidential election results by county CartogramOtherPresidentialCounty1848Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of "Other" presidential election results by county ==Results by state==